D’Antoni: Championship or Bust

Newly hired head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers Mike D’Antoni hasn’t coached a game for his team yet, but he’s already setting high goals for himself and the Lake Show.

In an interview with John Ireland earlier this week, D’Anotni publicly stated that if the Lakers aren’t in the hunt for a championship, he’ll consider this season a personal failure.

“If we’re not at least in the hunt, a serious hunt, then I’ve failed as a head coach. I’m comfortable with that.”

D’Antoni is currently recovering from total knee replacement surgery and is expected to make his way to the sidelines this week.

We’ll have Steve Nash running the offense and he’s really good at getting everybody involved the right way,” D’Antoni continued. “What makes it really exciting is that everybody’s at the point in their career where all they want is the championship. Once you have that settled — and it should be like that everywhere but it isn’t — once you have that settled, it’s like, ‘OK, let’s sit down and figure this out.’ And we definitely have the talent to be able to do that.

D’Antoni has not coached in the NBA since resigning from the New York Knicks on March 14, 2012. The Knicks were 18-24 prior to his resignation. He did have a successful assistant coaching job this summer, however. As a member of the the 2012 Team USA men’s basketball team, D’Antoni won a gold medal with Kobe Bryant.

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With the Lakers off to a poor start, trade rumors have begun to swirl around Kobe Bryant, leading many to speculate if he'll leave for greener pastures. Kobe puts those rumors to rest in his interview with Yahoo Sports.